Poor old del Boy has been out for some time, and Nadal surprised nobody today by confirming he is out - seems to be a combination of the abdominal problems we have heard about as well as some arthroscopic ankle surgery he's chosen to have, which was news to me.

Surely Isner, who is in ye top 10 for the first time, will want to finish off a banner year with his first WTF appearance? If not, Kachanov is next in line.

We would therefore seem to have Djoko, Fed, a clutch of big-hitting tall guys who play without much trickery or variety, and Nishikori. Beyond thinking that every year is worth catching these days since it might be Fed's last, there's not a huge amount to look forward to at this WTF, and we are also reminded of how dull the post-Fed landscape may look. Dimitrov has comprehensively failed to build on his 2017 - who's surprised?

Yes I fear Isner will want to join in though I'd much prefer to have Khasha now.

But to be fair, without Nadal and Zverev with a shoulder problem, we are likely to have 2 very unbalanced groups anyway. I can see Federer and Djoko meet in the final again and I can't see Federer doing any better than in Paris.

I think the bracket names are a bit silly, and they are also very 'contemporary', largely a product of Fed's extraordinary longevity:(i) Kuerten/Hewitt won in 2000-2002, the last three season enders before Fed's first win in 2003; (ii) Isner is the only participant this year who is closer in age to Federer than Federer is to Kuerten - he is 4 years younger than Fed who is 5 years younger than Kuerten;(iii) Hewitt is 6 months older than Fed.

So Nadal breaks the time rule (even with the clock) about 20 times a match and gets no warnings, but knocking a ball into the crowd, suddenly the umpire gets hissy? lol. Sounds like a lot of bias going on.

Federer was dreadul in that match and he only has himself to blame for not skipping Paris. He's not even reaching SF on that form.

Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.======================+Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

Tenez wrote:Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.======================+Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

What conclusion was wrong?

Court pace is never measured by any unit available. Most players/commentators share thier view playing or talking to players or observing the matches played.

Like someone switched his racket, huge amount of UEs, FH 5m flying out of court, serve poor, return of serve even worst.

On court behavior starting to get bitchy.

Wake the fuck up!!!

His form has been poor the entire year, nothing even close to what he was in 2017. Maybe an injury, but regardless he has been playing poor all year despite winning AO. He lost his edge/form when he lost to Goffin in WTF SF last year. Never recovered since..

I think the Delpo loss after having 2 MPs in IW final accelerated the down-hill slide. This year I can't remember any good match where he played good and won. Almost all his important wins have been scrappy.

I'd say that, but I said it in Paris and really he was a touch unfortunate to be on the wrong side of one of those oddball results where he broke and the other guy didn't. Losing 6-7, 7-5, 6-7 is unusual and under no circumstances can be called a beating.

bogbrush wrote:I'd say that, but I said it in Paris and really he was a touch unfortunate to be on the wrong side of one of those oddball results where he broke and the other guy didn't. Losing 6-7, 7-5, 6-7 is unusual and under no circumstances can be called a beating.

In my opinion after watching the whole match in Paris vs Djoko, the scoreline makes it look much closer than it really was.

Fed didn't create enough chances on his return games. While he himself was struggling throughout in his own service games having to fend of BPs after BPs. Fed has rarely won TBs in big matches when he is struggling so much to hold serve.

Djoko like Nadal has developed a complete game-plan against Fed and he is disciplined enough to stick with it throughout the match. He has resources to pull it off as well. This is the reason for Fed's struggling h2h against Djoko in the last few years.

Fed and his team need a counter game-plan. But does he have enough time left?

Tenez wrote:Serve speed is irrelevant to court speed as its measured from the racquet, not once it has bounced.======================+Your facts are right but your conclusion is wrong.balls size is more important than court pace to speed up conditions. Bigger balls can even make grass slower than clay. So a small/fast ball will speed up serve and game.If Wimbledon were to use same balls as the 90s the big servers would still have a very good chance to win it.

What conclusion was wrong?

Court pace is never measured by any unit available. Most players/commentators share thier view playing or talking to players or observing the matches played.

Tenez... I was about to correct you as well.

It only goes to show your bias. That you used a non existing stat to back your argument up and didn't know it.

What are you on about? What don't you understand again? and like peaking in tennis, will it take you 5 years to understand you were wrong?

What I am saying here is that court conditions are measured on 2 factors: court speed and ball velocity. Those 2 factors are the main ones affecting court conditions, besides the less controllable ones such as air temps, or humidity and so on.

So if players serve faster than their usual, it probably means they are serving with faster balls, and faster balls make court conds faster.

Isner is carrying some injury for some months now. Also just had his first child born very recently, his mind is definitely not 100% on tennis. He is probably playing coz this is his first WTF and this has been his career-best season.

Zverev is as his usual. No will to fight and a tame submission if things don't go well. BPs to go 5*-4 up which Djoko saved and then lose the next game and the 1st set. Yet Djoko wasn't playing good. But Zverev wasn't willing to fight it out. Didn't looked like he wanted to be on the court any more.

Just Compare Zverev to a young Nadal. How Nadal would lose a match in 2004-05. You may win but he would make you earn every bit of it.

Zverev has a series of tame endings and this shows his mental weakness.

Last edited by raiders_of_the_lost_ark on Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:14 am; edited 1 time in total